1975.04.01: Racism in Sex Education (Red Tide)

Los Angeles—“Black youngsters are two to three years ahead sexually. They mature two to three years ahead and have less personal restraint and are exposed to more in the home.”

So says J.C. Chambers, an L.A. City School Board member, in a statement made to the press on March 10th.

“My concern is with the 13 and 14 year old (white) girls who are exposed to a more rapidly maturing (black) boy. Everyone knows so much can happen – and believe me, it does.”

SEX ED. WITHOUT FRILLS

Chambers also does not believe that sex education courses should include information on venereal disease, pregnancy, contraception or abortion, and that the differences in sexual development are one reason he does not want to “mix the races.”

It may sound like something out of “Gone With the Wind,” but in reality, these statements represent the unwritten Board policy for the entire L.A. school system. The District, over 200 schools, is almost totally segregated, except for those in which small numbers of students of one race attend the school of another. In fact, the Calif. State Court of Appeals recently reversed a lower court decision [that] required the L.A. District to desegregate.

BOARD PUSHES RACISM

Racism is not just some ignorant redneck operation in Boston, or the South, but is something that people in ruling positions such as Chambers and the Board put into hard and fast practice every day. As schools rapidly deteriorate around the country, schools boards, city officials, and others will do their best to pit whites against blacks [–] the most effective way of fooling people about who is the real threat.

Chambers’ statements about black males (not to mention myths about white females) are similar to those theories put forward by such [in]famous racist scientists as Jensen, who claim that blacks are naturally inferior to whites. Chambers’ remarks try to put forward an intellectual reason for the deliberately racist policy that dictates policy not only in the L.A. schools, but all over the country.

Chambers’ belief that there should be no discussion in sex education classes of V.D., pregnancy, abortion, contraception, etc., is based on a weird moral code that could date back to the Middle Ages. If Chambers doesn’t care about women becoming pregnant or both sexes getting V.D., we certainly do!

While Chambers’ statements are blatantly racist and anti-human, he’s just the only one stupid enough to say out loud that this is how schools are already run anyway.

[Historical Note: The Red Tide was a revolutionary high school underground newspaper and youth organization that existed from 1971-1981. See: http://theredtide.wordpress.com/]